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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704745">too picturesque an image to control this time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope'>Caracalliope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Headaches &amp; Migraines, Roleswap, The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:35:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>413</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Meat Epilogues AU: Dirk comes to Rose for advice and solace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rose Lalonde &amp; Dirk Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>too picturesque an image to control this time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/gifts">Silvereye</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="align-justify">
  <p>Exhaustion sits heavy and damp on Dirk’s shoulders, constricting his breathing and also his vocabulary. His posture used to be like his daughter’s, gracefully deliberate and always prepared for battle. Now he is slumped across her velvet couch, formless, head in her lap.</p>
  <p>
  <span class="font-dirk">DIRK: Have you ever cradled a fancy Santa in your hands? Knowin’ that you cracked him with your insufficiently smooth moves, but you’re still just a stupid kid and you’re not ready to face up to the shards?</span><br/>
<span class="font-rose">ROSE: Ah, no. Only one kind of bearded idol was tolerated in my house.</span><br/>
<span class="font-dirk">DIRK: My psyche is the fancy Santa, ‘fcourse, but with each new day of fuckery, I keep thinking that my body is, too. I can’t get the awareness of pain out of my head. People keep asking if the headache’s a metaphor. I wish it was, but my head just hurts, Rose. I got it checked by an adorable-ass carapacian radiologist but they just said I was in tip-top god shape.</span>
</p>
  <p>Her skin is cooler than his, and she rests a hand on his forehead. His pain rises, crashes like a wave against his forehead, and then it quiets down. Dirk breathes like a diver between one plunge and the next.</p>
  <p><span class="font-rose">ROSE: Could it be psychosomatic?</span><br/>
<span class="font-dirk">DIRK: First, I thought it was phantom pains from my beheadings. Or some kind of fucked-up symptom of heartbreak that nobody told me about. You never know with love, right? But I don’t think it comes from the feelings. </span><br/>
<span class="font-rose">ROSE: What feelings?</span><br/>
<span class="font-dirk">DIRK: Guilt, confusion, a whole new ultra-tier of self-loathing. I think it all comes from someplace else, somewhere outside of me. I know this is tin foil baseball hat territory, but I preemptively want to point out that alien mind control does exist.</span><br/>
<span class="font-rose">ROSE: Didn’t Crocker have shares in the tin foil industry? But I believe you, Dirk.</span><br/>
<span class="font-dirk">DIRK: Wait, you do?<br/>
<span class="font-rose">ROSE: Why wouldn’t I? You have no reason to lie to me.</span></span></p>
  <p>And he hasn’t been lying - she has Seen every world where he slips from her grasp and unites with his alt selves without her guidance. Knows of his bitter loneliness in the worlds where he decides to conceal himself.</p>
  <p>She also knows she could spare him this pain altogether, tell him the truth, take him as her apprentice. She could take all choices away from him, making sure he only does what is good. He'd appreciate it, possibly. <span class="font-rose">But that wouldn’t be narratively satisfying, would it?</span></p>
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